Paul Augustinus in Nepal- Page 1
In 1997 my mother decided that she wanted to go to India and was at a loss to find someone to go with her as company. With my wife Clarissa away on a long consultancy in Indonesia, 'mom' turned to me as a last resort, having already noted that that I was between paintings and was, according to her way of thinking, wasting my valuable time by doing nothing but surfing.
I agreed to go with the one stipulation - that the itinerary should at least include a visit to a tiger reserve of note so that I would be able to get some material that was of use to me as a wildlife artist.
She agreed, and later, when she presented me with her itinerary, it had very mysteriously expanded to include Nepal as well! I began to realize that I was in for a serious temple 'fest' so I proposed an even better plan of my own that included at least three places where tiger sightings were possible. Initially this trip proved hard to research, because I knew that in India there are several well known reserves that virtually guaranteed tiger encounters - the only problem for me with those areas was that I knew that they were tourist traps where jungle tracks become congested with dozens of jeeps laden with visitors. Often there were buses packed with schoolchildren about as well. I wanted to go to at least one place that was far from the usual tourist circuit. The reserve that fitted this bill perfectly was Bandhavgarh in Central India. This seldom visited reserve was far from the mainstream routes used by travelers in India and only dedicated wildlife-watchers make the effort to get there. I also gleaned some inside information that Bandhavgarh, at that moment in time, was probably the best place to have private sightings of tigers in India - just what I wanted - no other photographers or tourists around to ruin the atmosphere for a spoiled artist from Africa who was used to having whole districts to himself for seasons at a time. For the other two reserves I settled on Kahna National Park and in Nepal there was really one place worth going and that was Chittwan, situated in the low lying Tehrai on the Indian border. Chittwan National Park, a place not noted for its tiger sightings, is a good place to see Indian rhino, another exotic Asian animal that I wanted to see and paint. So all these places were added to my moms' vastly expanded itinerary, one that now also included a visit to Agra, The Taj Mahal, Delhi, Fatepursikri, Katmandu and Pokhara, near the Anapurna Himal.
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The first stage of our journey took us from Durban to Dubai, then on to Singapore and finally to Katmandu, where we stayed for a week wandering about marvelling at the genuine medieval nature of this exotic town. However I tire quickly of teeming crowds and was impatient to procede to the next part of the itinerary, which was 2 week stay at the Chittwan Jungle lodge in the central part of the Chittwan reserve.
Getting there was half the fun as we had rented a car and driver to take us there via the only land route possible - the narrow two lane road that winds down from the foothills of the Himalayas through fascinating forest and terraced farmland. The last part of the journey was across the floodplain of the Chittwan river by a Landrover that met us at a village on the edge of the reserve.The last few kilometers of this fascinating journey was through dense jungle scenery to the well constructed Lodge where we would stay..........TO PAGE 2 >


Above- My mom explores the temple warrens of Katmandu.

"The Hook" as seen from the town of Pokhara in central Nepal.


Above - A street scene from Braktapur in Nepal.